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After a period of unit revenue growth following the global financial crisis, Air Europa came under heavy pricing pressure in 2015. Renewed growth by Iberia has intensified competition to Latin America, while LCCs are putting strain on short haul yields.

Air Europa does not report profits, but it is its parent company Globalia's largest business by revenue. The privately owned Globalia group has been profitable since 2013 but suffered a fall in profits in 2015, when its Air Division's revenue declined by 3% in spite of traffic growth. The group balance sheet has low liquidity and Globalia is reportedly considering an IPO.

Widebodies now represent more than half of Air Europa's seats and 20 out of 27 outstanding orders. This reflects the importance of its Latin American network and its ambitions to continue long haul growth, as detailed in part 1 of this report. Moreover, the widebody orders are for Boeing 787s – to replace A330s, generating cost efficiency gains. CAPA estimates that Air Europa's unit cost is above that of LCCs, but closer to them than to FSCs. It has a good track record of labour productivity growth, which will be useful in its quest for further CASK reduction.

Vueling's new CEO, Javier Sanchez-Prieto, is leading a programme ('Vueling NEXT') to improve its profitability, both through revenue enhancement and cost efficiency gains. Among other aims this hopes to reduce Vueling's high levels of seasonality, to raise aircraft utilisation and to improve labour productivity. Given ambitious financial targets by IAG – action is needed.

Part 1 of CAPA's analysis of Vueling examined its capacity growth and profitability trends since its acquisition by IAG in 2013. Vueling's operating margin and return on invested capital are on a downward trend, hence the new initiative to reverse these trends.

This second part of CAPA's analysis considers the profit improvement programme. During this programme Vueling's fleet will remain broadly flat to 2018, before resuming growth thereafter. Focus markets for Vueling are domestic Spain and Spain-Europe. It has strengths in these markets but faces growing competition from its lower-cost rival Ryanair, which has also been raising its service quality – closing the gap to Vueling's more premium positioning on the LCC spectrum.